First Milestone for Egroupware 2.0

En route to version 2.0 of its Web-based groupware product, Egroupware has reached the first milestone of three, which was scheduled for late in 2008.

To take this step, the developers have implemented the address book module and an SQL database-based authentication. According to the developers Egroupware 2.0 is far more independent of the underlying database than the 1.x branch, which relied on a MySQL database server to all practical extents. To this end the developers use the PDO database adapter and the Zend_DB database abstraction layer in the new implementation.

Although the current 1.x version of the PHP application will still be maintained, the software project is attempting to completely rewrite the software project for Egroupware 2.0. It remains to be seen whether version 2.0 will be the direct successor of Egroupware 1.x, or whether the two branches will continue to coexist; the project has not reached a decision as yeet. Egroupware started life as a PHPgroupware fork.

The roadmap for the 2.0 final release includes a Javascript-based user interface, authentication against LDAP, a Web Services interface and drag & drop. Future plans also include integrating the CalDAV calendar interface.

The online demo gives users a first impression of the Egroupware 2.0 branch.

A demo site gives users an impression of the current state of development of the 2.0 branch, although the developers emphasize that the software is still alpha.

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